Red fighters from the Guerilla Front 56 Operations Command of the New People’s Army hit two military vehicles belonging to the 84th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army on 19 April at around 5:50 pm in New Upian, Barangay Marilog, Marilog District, Davao City. Command-detonated explosives damaged the vehicles, killed three soldiers and wounded two others. The Philippine Army was quick to conceal from the public the three fatalities to downplay the NPA’s successful offensive.

The NPA’s military action serves as a strong warning to enemy troops engaging in offensive combat operation inside the guerilla territories of the People’s Democratic Government. It also serves as fair warning to reactionary civilian authorities actively aiding the Philippine Army in its counter-revolutionary Oplan Bayanihan Operations.

Enemies like the 84th IB troops, notorious for being protectors of landgrabbers of Marilog district, have used as a convenient pretext their deceptive role as escorts to the local reactionary health personnel. Lt. Colonel Gabriel Viray, commanding officer of the 84th Infantry Battalion, is lying through his teeth when he accused the NPA of thwarting a supposed precious medical mission in the far-flung areas, even as his troops have been busy abetting and arming baganis, blackfighters, Alamara and other paramilitary Lumads in Marilog.

Two days prior to the NPA ambush, his troops, alongside one Dr. Braganza of the reactionary government’s City Health Office and his staff, were conducting interrogation among civilians to determine the whereabouts of the Red fighters.

The 84th IB has stepped up its offensive operations in Marilog to pave the way for the landgrabbing, anomalous sale and re-sale of the farmlands of peasants and the ancestral lands of Lumad Matigsalogs in Marilog district by the Mindanao Indigenous People’s Council for Peace and Development (MIPCPD). This, in connivance with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.The MIPCPD engages in quick money-making schemes designed to hoodwink unsuspecting hapless peasants of Marilog. They are aptly called tribal dealers, not tribal leaders.

As the Philippine Army pits Lumads against Bisayas, consistent with its rehashed divide and rule tactics, it utilizes reactionary civilian authorities in defrauding civilians, and ultimately lays the groundwork favorable for the entry of mining and other capitalist incursion in this resource-rich district of Davao City. This deserves the highest condemnation from the people, and underscores the exigency of the escalating offensives by the people’s army.